It's been a while, hasn't it? I promise I'm not dead, just dormant.
I have a bundle of posts to do, so without further ado, I present to you... Delirium by Lauren Oliver
They say that the cure for Love will make me happy and safe forever.
And I've always believed them.
Until now.
Now everything has changed.
Now, I'd rather be infected with love for the tiniest sliver of a second than live a hundred years smothered by a lie.
Delirium by Lauren Oliver
2.5 Stars
Genre: Dystopic romance
Series: Delirium #1
Publisher: Hodder & Stoughton
Pages: 398
Additional Notes:
Been on my to-read list a while, pretty much since I joined goodreads. Will continue with the series, despite not liking this one as I heard that Pandemonium is amazing.
Goodreads
Amazon
Yesterday on the radio they were talking about scientific and psychological research done on the nature of love, through recent DNA and brain analysis.
Now whilst I was reading this, I questioned the plausibility of being able to simply cut out an emotion because as much as they try to pretend otherwise, love is an emotion, not a disease... and why they would even find it necessary. And why just love, not any other emotion, like jealousy or anger, like in The Giver? I know they say that anger and jealousy stem from love, but I still don't buy it. At least listening to this this has helped me along a bit, kind of demonstrating that it is possible, although I do question brain damage, because many of the brain parts which would have needed to be cut out to prevent love (as that is what they say they do in the book) are also essential to other emotions.
I know I should just accept it as sci-fi and move on, but my logical brain does not see how this could possible work. Maybe that is why you have to be over 18. It is obvious that Lauren Oliver has done some research into this, as her idea of a cure is, despite all, quite plausible. At least she hasn't tried to give them needles or something.
Onto the book.
This book comes up a lot when talking about Books Which Are Like the Hunger Games. Many people said it was like a better version of Matched. But I didn't really think so. To me the two are very similar, both set in a futuristic dystopic society where things are tightly controlled and two teenage girls, brought up obeying the rules, are now rebelling thanks to love.
The plot never really took off anywhere, plodding especially in the middle.
As characters, Lena and Alex both fall flat. Lena was especially irritating with her frequent claims that she is 'pain', 'ordinary' and 'nothing special.' More then once she wonders why Hana hangs out with her, when Hana is so obviously prettier and more popular then she is.
You have self esteem problems.
And of course despite all her complaints that she is not pretty, Alex still loves her and says she is beautiful, yada yada yada.
There are also quite a few world building flaws:
Sometime during the book, she says that she has never dared to say the wored love. Love is supposed to be this big forbidden concept. And yet right at the beginning of the book, when she and her carer are rehearsing her evaluation, she says "I like children" and, after her carer corrects her, she says "I love children.
I'm sorry?
This is probably a simple editing mistake, but it is quite annoying.
I also didn't understand why it was set in the future, yet seemingly without any advance in technology? They have mobile phones, which shows that they haven't decided technology is harmful or anything along those lines, but I would have liked either something like the tablets of Match to show advancement or an explanation as to why they don't use technology.
I would also have liked to know what happened to the rest of the world. They say that the USA simply put up borders, but does this not mean that the other countries are living uncured? Whats to stop people simply leaving the country if they disagree? Instead of staying and starting an uprising (I assume that's what they'll do), thus ruining the society that a lot of people are perfectly happened with? Is there something stopping them? If so, I would have liked to know. Maybe the rest of the world has been destroyed. It's not believable, but even so I would have liked something to explain why these people decided to stay and live in the Wilds.
I was also extremely dissatisfied with the ending. Honestly, I would have preferred if Lena hadn't been so stubborn and just undertaken the operation. After all, hadn't nearly the same thing happened to her sister, and after her sister had the cure she forgot all about the boy. I suppose it wouldn't be much of a story, but it would have been much easier for everyone if Lena had been cured, even if she tried to resist like her sister did.
Overall, I guess that it wasn't a bad book, it was just incredibly underwhelming and I had many issues with the premise. It is hard to like a book when you are constantly suspending disbelief at what is happening.
Nonetheless I can see why people would like it, and indeed its not terrible. I just had some... issues with it.
